#sgbudget

SINGAPORE – The Republic’s Budget for the financial year starting April 1 has been tabled in Parliament today by Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam. Coming in the wake of the Population White Paper, Mr Tharman’s Budget speech at 3.30pm will be closely watched to see how it addresses the issues raised by the White Paper. We will be posting live updates from the speech here, on Twitter and on Facebook . Starting his speech, Mr Tharman said the Budget for FY2012 is expected to have a surplus, exceeding what was estimated a year ago. "We had estimated an overall Budget Balance of S$1.3 billion or 0.4 per cent of GDP. We now expect a higher surplus of S$3.9b or 1.1 per cent of GDP." The additional surplus, said Mr Tharman was due entirely to higher revenues from stamp duties and vehicle-related taxes. Mr Tharman said the median Singaporean househo...